For five players on Pitt’s defense, the five words are basically a mantra.
Defensive tackle K.K. Mosley-Smith even has them tattooed on his left forearm.
“To achieve, you must endure.”
Those words are etched on an old, beat-up sign players at Woodland Hills High School hit before every game, home and away. Five players on the Panthers defense remember hitting that sign. Hitting it before wins, before losses, and before WPIAL championship games.
Along with Mosley-Smith, linebacker Mike Caprara, defensive end Ejuan Price and defensive backs Lafayette and Jevonte Pitts — the latter two cousins — are graduates of “Woody High,” making five former Wolverines on Pitt’s defense.
“To me, this is a blessing,” Mosley-Smith said. “You go around the country, you don’t have this. Not too many people can say they’ve got five defensive players that they played in high school with at the same college.”
Earlier this season, Caprara recorded a sack against Virginia, and two of the first people there to celebrate with him were Price and Mosley-Smith.
“We’ve got that hometown feel,” Price said. “We’ve been playing together forever, so it’s always a good thing. I know his tendencies. I know when he celebrates, he’s going to do that stupid [move].”
Celebration moves aside, the chemistry of the Woodland Hills contingent has paid off for Pitt’s defense this season. Four of the five will likely start Saturday at Duke, with Jevonte Pitts getting regular work on special teams and serving as a backup safety.
“The first quality is they’ve been coached before and they know how to win,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said. “That’s huge.”
The players, to a man, credit George Novak, the Wolverines coach since the school opened in 1987.
“He just keeps practice to a high standard,” Mosley-Smith said. “To come into a Division I school out of high school, with coach [Novak], you’re not too far behind.”
Lafayette Pitts said the schedule Novak sets for his players is not all that different from what they do in college. They would get out of school at 2:15, have study hall, watch film, then practice in the evening, wrapping up around 8 or 9 p.m.
“Most high schools probably don’t watch film on their opponents,” Lafayette Pitts said. “We’d have meetings and everything before we’d go out and practice.
“It was a long day, but it was school and football.”
Of course, it’s not like those players would want it any other way.
“When you’re a kid and you hear about Woodland Hills, it’s like hearing about somewhat of a college,” Mosley-Smith said. “You grow up and you want to play for Woodland Hills.”
There’s a reason “Woody High” carries that type of weight in the community. At the Wolvarena, there’s a wall with every Woodland Hills standout who ever played Division I football — including NFL stars Steve Breaston and Jason Taylor, and former Pitt players such as Lousaka Polite and Shawntae Spencer.
“It’s just like a pipeline,” Price said. “Being with these guys is the reason I came here, just to be with family and the people I know.”
Novak says that before every season, he asks his kids which of them want to play college football. They all raise their hands, naturally. He reinforces the idea by welcoming back alumni to help coach and teach the current generation of Wolverines.
“You’re in high school, you’re starting for Woodland Hills, a big program, and you think you’re hot stuff,” Jevonte Pitts said. “They come through and they’ll just show you some things that you never even knew.
“They’ll also just be like,’Your team wouldn’t beat our team.’ It’s so competitive, we’d always get to arguing about stuff like that.”
These five contend the best is 2009, the final year all five played together and won a WPIAL championship. That was Mosley-Smith’s senior season, with Lafayette Pitts and Price leaving the following year, and Jevonte Pitts and Caprara graduating in 2012.
That 10-0 win against Gateway in the title game was the general consensus for best high school memory among the five, but Jevonte Pitts also mentioned a win against Mt. Lebanon in the WPIAL quarterfinals the following year, in which Lafayette ran back a kickoff for a touchdown and Price hauled in a 14-yard pass on fourth-and-12 to keep a drive alive.
“Me and Mike [Caprara] were just sitting there thinking it was over,” Jevonte Pitts said. “The next thing you know, Ejuan just runs over a guy, catches it and gets the first down. We all just jump up and we had some life.”
Before both of those games, the Wolverines hit that sign — “To achieve, you must endure.” Novak said the sign has been around for 29 years, and was originally the brainchild of former Turtle Creek coach John Callahan.
“What it means is you’re going to go through good times and bad. You’ve got to endure the bad times so you can achieve the good times,” Novak said. “I think it’s a good saying for everything in life, not just for football.”
Mosley-Smith, Caprara, Price and the Pitts cousins won’t hit Novak’s sign Saturday at Duke, but those five words, along with the memories associated with them, will be in the back of their minds.
“Growing up playing with these guys was everything to me,” Caprara said. “Football back at Woodland Hills was second to none. All of us being here where we are, it’s like one in gazillion. I’m very thankful to be playing with these guys because I consider them my brothers.”
Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG.
First Published: November 13, 2015, 5:00 a.m.